The West - Important Events - 1860 to 1870

1860

A Homestead Bill, providing federal land grants to Western settlers, is vetoed by President Buchanan under pressure from the South.

The veto divides Buchanan's Democratic party, clearing the way for Abraham Lincoln's election in a three-way race.

In February, the Wiyot Massacre took place where up to 250 Wiyot Indians were killed on Indian Island, near Eureka, California, by recently arrived whites.

The Pony Express completes its inaugural delivery, bringing mail over the 1,966 miles from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in 11 days.

Organized by William H. Russell and Alexander Majors, the service depends on a string of 119 stations, about 12 miles apart, where the young riders -- "skinny, expert . . . willing to risk death daily" -- exchange horses to keep advancing at top speed.

Severe drought leads to an exodus of 30,000 settlers from Kansas.

The Paiute War begins as Northern Paiutes raided Williams Station in Utah Territory.

The First Battle of Pyramid Lake takes place when American vigilantes seek out the Paiutes and are soundly defeated. Disorganized and outnumbered, nearly all of the vigilantes are killed or wounded.

The Second Battle of Pyramid Lake takes place, but this time a well-organized force of militia and U.S. Army soldiers seek out the Paiutes and defeat them in the final battle of the war. The Paiute War ends with an informal ceasefire.

Lincoln is elected President, pledging to pass homestead legislation and to oppose the spread of slavery.

His victory provokes the state of South Carolina to secede.

Annie Oakley was born in Ohio on August 13,1860 and her parents named her Phoebe Ann Mozee.

Texas Rangers defeat a band of Comanches at the Battle of Pease River. And yes, in the process Cynthia Ann Parker is recaptured and returned to her family after 24 years.

1861

Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state. Kansas enters the Union as a free state.

Colorado and Nevada Territories are organized as Congress begins to consolidate federal control over the West, establishing strong local governments loyal to the Union across the region.

Texas joins the Confederacy, forcing its legendary Unionist governor, Sam Houston, out of office.

Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas secedes from the Union.

West Virginia secedes from Virginia.

President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.

Camp Jackson Affair took place when Union military forces clashed with civilians on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 people and injuries to another 100.

Kentucky proclaims its neutrality which lasts until September 3, when Confederate forces enter the state.

President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.

Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, unleashing the Civil War.

California declares itself for the Union when news of the Civil War reaches the far West more than a month after the attack on Fort Sumter.

Crews working to complete a coast-to-coast telegraph line meet at Fort Bridger in Utah Territory.

Western Department Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command and replaced by David Hunter.

Battle of Belmont Missouri takes place. Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.

The first transcontinental telegram, transmitted from Sacramento to Washington, carries a message from the state's Chief Justice to President Lincoln.

Completion of a transcontinental telegraph line signals the end for the Pony Express.

The Kansas Jayhawkers, a supposedly pro-Union guerrilla band organized by Charles J. Jennison, begin marauding across the Missouri border.

In December, they attack and occupy Independence, Missouri, burning much of the city and killing many citizens.

1862

Congress passes the Pacific Railroad Act, which authorizes the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Companies to build a transcontinental rail line along the 42nd parallel and provides public lands and subsidies for every mile of track laid.

Congress passes the Homestead Act, which allows citizens to settle on up to 160 acres of surveyed but unclaimed public land and receive title to it after making improvements and residing there for five years.

The Homestead Act and the Pacific Railroad Act facilitate settlement of the West.

The result by 1890 was millions of new farms in the Plains states, many operated by new immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia.

General Ulysses S. Grant gives the United States its first victory of the war, by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee.

General Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson, Tennessee and captures it the next day.

Idaho Territory organized.

The Civil War divides the Five Civilized Tribes, who brought slaves west with them when they were forced from their homelands in the South.

Most side at once with the Confederacy, contributing a brigade to the cause.

But the Creek Nation splits into pro-Union and pro-Confederate factions, who battle against one another throughout the war.

Sibley's Brigade, an army of Texas Confederates commanded by General Henry J. Sibley, invade New Mexico, moving up the Rio Grande.

Battle of Valverde fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory.

Confederates defeat a Union force at Valverde, advance through Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and then turn north toward Colorado's gold fields.

But at Apache Canyon they are ambushed by a squad of Colorado volunteers commanded by the "Fighting Parson," John M. Chivington.

Two days later they are defeated by a Union force at Glorietta Pass, where Chivington's irregulars rappel down a cliff face to destroy their supply wagons.

In what was the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico, because of Chivington's actions Union forces succeed in stopping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory.

The Texans retreat in disarray, their hopes of conquest shattered at what became known as "the Gettysburg of the West."

Congress passes the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which targets the Mormon community by prohibiting polygamy in United States territories. The law is ignored in Utah.

Abraham Lincoln meets with a group of prominent African-Americans – the first time a President has done so.

Abraham Lincoln suggests Black people should migrate to Africa or Central America, and offers government financial assistance to do so - but this advice is rejected.

Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun.

A smallpox epidemic breaks out in California.

The Sioux in Minnesota systematically attacked German farms in an effort to drive out the settlers.

Over a period of several days, Dakota attacks at the Lower Sioux Agency, New Ulm and Hutchinson, slaughtered 400 to 500 white settlers.

The state militia fought back and Lincoln sent in federal troops.

The ensuing battles at Fort Ridgely, Birch Coulee, Fort Abercrombie, and Wood Lake punctuated a six-week war, which ended in American victory.

The federal government tried 425 Indians for murder. Out of that 303 Sioux were convicted and sentenced to death. Lincoln pardoned the majority, but 38 Sioux leaders were hanged.

In the "far West," in the Apache Wars, Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson forced the Mescalero Apache onto a reservation in 1862.

1863

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

Back East, Union forces prevail at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Congress organizes the Arizona Territory.

Lawrence, Kansas is attacked by William Quantrill's raiders, who kill an estimated 200 men and boys.

The raid becomes notorious in the North as one of the most vicious war crime atrocities of the Civil War.

Quantrill's Raiders, a Confederate guerrilla band operating out of Missouri, terrorize much of Kansas killing the innocent and burning towns.

Among the raiders are Frank and Jesse James, and Cole and Jim Younger, who will use the hit-and-run tactics taught by their leader, William Clarke Quantrill, to create vicious outlaw gangs in the post-war West.

The first claim under the Homestead Act is made for a farm in Nebraska.

Ground is broken in Sacramento, California on the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States.  

Frank James is identified as a member of a band of Confederate guerrillas. In May, a Union militia company raided the James-Samuel farm, looking for Frank's group.

Frank eluded capture and was believed to have joined the guerrilla organization led by William C. Quantrill. It is thought that he took part in the notorious massacre of some two hundred men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas, a center of abolitionists.

Frank James followed Quantrill to Texas over the winter of 1863–1864.

Idaho Territory is organized by the U.S. Congress.   West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.  

Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.

In 1863-1864, Col. Kit Carson used a scorched earth policy in the Navajo Campaign, burning Navajo fields and homes, and capturing or killing their livestock.

He was aided by other Indian tribes with long-standing enmity toward the Navajos, chiefly the Utes. 

1864

Congress organizes the Montana Territory and admits Nevada into the Union as the 36th U.S. state, completing the political organization of the West under local governments loyal to the Union.

That spring Frank James returned in a squad commanded by Fletch Taylor. After they arrived in Clay County, 16-year-old Jesse James joined his brother in Taylor's group.

In the summer of 1864, Taylor was severely wounded, losing his right arm to a shotgun blast. The James brothers joined the bushwhacker group led by Bloody Bill Anderson.

Jesse suffered a serious wound to the chest that summer.

The Clay County provost marshal reported that both Frank and Jesse James took part in the Centralia Massacre in September, in which guerrillas killed or wounded some 22 unarmed Union troops; the guerrillas scalped and dismembered some of the dead.

The guerrillas ambushed and defeated a pursuing regiment of Major A.V.E. Johnson's Union troops, killing all of the more than 100 troops who tried to surrender . Frank later identified Jesse as a member of the band who had fatally shot Major Johnson.

A second Pacific Railroad Act is passed by Congress, one that aims to stimulate investment in the enterprise by doubling the size of the land grants and improving the subsidies offered for every mile of track laid.

Sent to punish Navajo raiding parties in northwest New Mexico, Colonel Kit Carson leads a campaign of destruction through their villages, burning crops and killing livestock.

When the Navajo surrender, Carson marches 8,000 of the tribe on a grueling "Long Walk" across New Mexico to a parched reservation near Fort Sumner on the Pecos River, where they are held as prisoners of war until 1868.

The Navajo led by the U.S. Army are relocated from their traditional lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner in the Pecos River valley.

At least 200 died along the 300-mile "Long Walk of the Navajo" that took over 18 days to travel on foot.

Sand Creek Massacre takes place when Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women, and children at Sand Creek, Colorado, where they had been given permission to camp.

Meeting with army officers at Fort Weld outside Denver, the Cheyenne chief, Black Kettle, agrees to lead his people back to their Sand Creek reservation in order to restore peace after Indian raids on ranches in the area.

He is attacked there by a volunteer force led by John M. Chivington, the "Fighting Parson" of Glorietta Pass, which sweeps down on the Cheyenne encampment at dawn and massacres nearly hundreds of men, women and children.

Later Congressional and military investigations condemn the slaughter. Chivington resigns from the Army.

The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 which mandates that the inscription "In God We Trust" be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.

Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres of the grounds of Robert E. Lee's home Arlington House are officially set-aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors, known as the so-called Four Georgians, discover gold at Last Chance Gulch.

It was their last and agreed final attempt at weeks of trying to find gold in the northern Rockies.

1865  

President Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. by actor John Wilkes Booth.  

Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.  

The Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, brings an end to the Civil War.  

The Battle of Palmito Ranch takes place in south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war ends with a Confederate victory.

Confederate forces west of the Mississippi under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.

Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation. Today it is an event now celebrated each year as Juneteenth.

At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory, Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant Rebel army.

A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres of timber.

In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown. Others call it an ambush.

The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225.

The Union Pacific Railroad begins moving westward, laying track at an average rate of one mile per day.

In California, Chinese laborers join the Central Pacific work gangs, providing the strength, organization and persistence needed to break through the mountains.

The Ku Klux Klan is formed by six Democrats, all Confederate Army veterans, in Pulaski, Tennessee, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate "carpetbaggers" (Republicans) and "scalawags" (Southern Unionists), as well as to repress the freed slaves.

Mark Twain publishes "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," a tall tale set in a boisterous California mining camp which brings the Western experience into the mainstream of American literature.

Mark Twain becomes America's Greatest Writer.

But by the 1990s, Mark Twain's literary works will be banned in American schools for using language common to 1800s America.

Fact is, 19th Century colloquialisms like "nigger" is all it will take to ban his works.

Some propose rewriting Twain's works to make them more politically acceptable to Democrats, those in charge of the Federal Government, and teacher's unions.

1866

General Philip H. Sheridan takes command of U.S. forces in the West, proposing to bring peace to the plains by exterminating the herds of buffalo that support the Indians' way of life: "Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians," he says.

A Lakota war party led by Chief Red Cloud attacks a wagon train bringing supplies to newly-constructed Fort Phil Kearny on the Powder River in northern Wyoming.

The Lakota see the fort, situated to protect travel to Montana mining country along the Bozeman Trail, as a threat to their territory.

When a patrol led by Captain William J. Fetterman rides out to drive off the war party, it is lured far from the fort and destroyed to the last man.

The first daylight bank robbery in United States history during peacetime takes place in Liberty, Missouri. This is considered to be the first robbery committed by Jesse James and his gang.

Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blaze the first cattle trail, driving a herd of 2,000 longhorns from Texas to New Mexico in what will become an annual tradition across the southern plains.

The U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army, which is now called a "5-star General". Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to have this rank.

Republicans pass The Civil Rights Act of 1866, overriding a presidential veto, granting further rights to freed slaves.

1867

Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state.

Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million from Alexander II of Russia, about 2 cents an acre, by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.

The news media call this "Seward's Folly."

The Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode mine is named in Montana.

The first cattle drive from Texas up the Chisholm Trail arrives at the railyards of Abilene, Kansas.

The Kidder Massacre takes place when a Sioux and Cheyenne war party kills U.S. Second Lieutenant Lyman Kidder, along with an Indian scout and ten enlisted men in Kansas.

Manifest Destiny is the policy of the day.

The United States and representatives of the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other southern Plains tribes sign the Medicine Lodge Treaty, intended to remove Indians from the path of white settlement.

The treaty marks the end of the era in which federal policymakers saw the Plains as "one big reservation" to be divided up among various tribes.

Instead, the treaty establishes reservations for each tribe in the western part of present-day Oklahoma and requires them to give up their traditional lands elsewhere.

In exchange, the government pledges to establish reservation schools and to provide resident farmers who will teach the Indians agriculture.

This same principle of restricting the Plains tribes to reservations will help shape the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

In both cases, the tribes' refusal to give up their free-ranging traditions and remain confined within the territory assigned to them leads to devastating warfare.

The United States takes control of Midway Island.

Yellow fever kills 3,093 in New Orleans.

The Chisholm Trail, laid out by cattleman Joseph McCoy along an old trail marked by Jesse Chisholm, was the major artery of cattle commerce, carrying over 1.5 million head of cattle between 1867 and 1871 over the 800 miles from south Texas to Abilene, Kansas.

Between 1867 and 1873, Chinese, Scandinavian and Irish immigrants lay 30,000 miles of railroad tracks in the USA.

Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry - it better known today as The Grange.

In Virginia City, Nevada, a prostitute, Julia Bulette, was one of the few who achieved "respectable" status.

She nursed victims of an influenza epidemic, which gave her acceptance in the community and the support of the sheriff.

The townspeople were so shocked when she was murdered in 1867 that they gave her a lavish funeral and speedily tried and hanged her assailant.

1868

Congress organizes the Wyoming Territory.

The Senate approves a treaty permitting unrestricted immigration from China.

The Chinese railbuilders of the Central Pacific finally break out of the High Sierras.

In the U.S. presidential election of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour in the election.

Chief Red Cloud and General William Tecumseh Sherman sign the Fort Laramie Treaty, which brings an end to war along the Bozeman Trail.

Under terms of the treaty, the United States agrees to abandon its forts along the Bozeman Trail and grant enormous parts of the Wyoming, Montana and Dakota Territories, including the Black Hills area, to the Lakota people as their exclusive territory.

General Philip Sheridan sends Colonel George Armstrong Custer against the Cheyenne, with a plan to attack them during the winter when they are most vulnerable.

Custer's troops locate a Cheyenne village on the Washita River in present-day Oklahoma.

Known as the Washita River Massacre, it takes place in the early morning of November 27th.

US Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land. Yes, they were living on reservation land.

By a cruel coincidence, the village is home to Black Kettle and his people, the victims of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864.

Custer's cavalry attacks at dawn, killing more than 100 men, women and children, including Black Kettle.

1869

Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as the 18th President of the United States of America.

John Wesley Powell, a veteran of the Civil War who lost part of his right arm at Shiloh and a self-taught expert on mountain geology, leads the first recorded voyage through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, winning national acclaim and setting the stage for government funded scientific study of the West.

The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in Promontory, Utah.

The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, it becomes one of the first such laws in the world.

Our Odd Addiction To Outlaws

By Mark Lee Gardner
August 06, 2013
FoxNews.com

“It is one of the characteristics of human nature to worship at the shrine of anyone who excels in any line, let it be for good or for evil.” -- Wayman Hogue, Back Yonder, 1932

On April 19, 1882, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde looked out of his hotel room window in St. Joseph, Missouri, at a large crowd of people gathered around a small house on a distant hilltop.

“It is the house of the great train-robber and murderer, Jesse James, who was killed by his pal last week,” Wilde wrote to a friend, “and the people are relic hunters.”

Wilde marveled at the prices Jesse’s possessions brought at public auction. A chromolithographic print “of the most dreadful kind” that had hung in the outlaw’s home sold for a price that “in Europe only an authentic Titian can command, or an undoubted Mantegna.”

Jesse’s celebrity status, which far outshined Wilde’s, baffled the Irishman. “The Americans are certainly great hero-worshippers,” he observed, “and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.”

The hero-worshipping Wilde encountered in St. Joseph was just the beginning. In the years to come, dozens and dozens of books, dime novels, and eventually movies, about Jesse and Frank James were produced to meet the American public’s ravenous appetite for such fare. It was the mythic Jesse that I admired, the audacious gunslinger who was more Robin Hood than ruthless killer, more Tyrone Power or Robert Wagner than Brad Pitt.

“[T]he men and kids never tire of reading about this king of outlaws,” said one newsstand proprietor in 1891, who claimed to sell three times as many Jesse James books as anything else he stocked.

Nearly seventy years later, as a child during the 1960s and early 70s, I counted Jesse James as one of my heroes, too. Of course, I grew up in northwest Missouri in the heart of Jesse James country. And it was the mythic Jesse that I admired, the audacious gunslinger who was more Robin Hood than ruthless killer, more Tyrone Power or Robert Wagner than Brad Pitt (all of whom have portrayed Jesse in film). And I admit that I still despise Jesse’s assassin, Bob Ford, even though Ford’s bullet likely prevented more deaths of innocent people at Jesse’s hands.

But while Jesse may have been the king of outlaws at one time, it did not take long for claimants to the throne to rise up in the American imagination – notorious criminals who also were rehabilitated, romanticized, and worshipped.

Born in 1859, "Billy the Kid" (real name Henry McCarty) was a personable New Mexico gunman and small time cattle thief who achieved national attention in April 1881 when he pulled off a remarkable daylight escape from the Lincoln County courthouse jail by single-handedly killing his two guards with their own guns.

There were more headlines nearly three months later when Sheriff Pat Garrett hunted Billy down and shot him dead in a darkened room at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. But it took a bestselling book published forty-five years later to send Billy into the pop culture stratosphere.

Readers of Walter Noble Burns’ "The Saga of Billy the Kid" discovered a “Robin Hood of the Mesas” who “went his way through life without remorse, unracked by nerves or memories, gay, light-hearted, fearless, always smiling.”

In late 2010, New Mexico’s governor Bill Richardson considered granting a posthumous pardon to the Kid, claiming he wanted to fulfill a promise made by his predecessor, Lew Wallace, back in 1879. Richardson announced his decision – not to issue the pardon – live on "Good Morning America" (I was actually rooting for the Kid on this one).

The following year, an authentic tintype image of the outlaw sold for $2.3 million dollars. To date, more than sixty films have featured Billy the Kid as a character, with a miniseries about Billy currently in the works at Fox.

Movies, in fact, have done much to rehabilitate the criminals of our past – or maybe Hollywood has simply given us what we wanted. Who doesn’t immediately picture handsome, devil-may-care Paul Newman and Robert Redford in their mind when western outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are mentioned, or Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway when the particularly nasty public enemies Bonnie and Clyde come up?

Indeed, the cult of outlaw celebrity Oscar Wilde witnessed in St. Joseph shows no signs of letting up, and that worries me. There’s nothing wrong with the fascination we have for these social outcasts, but when it turns to infatuation, we risk losing sight of their true – and usually awful – crimes.

What future, brooding hunks, I wonder, might eventually portray accused Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a TV movie? Will some governor, a hundred years from now, consider a posthumous pardon for Lee Harvey Oswald or Charles Manson?

What we need are more efforts to remember the other sides of the stories – like they do in Northfield, Minnesota.

Every September, the people of Northfield hold a graveside ceremony for the cashier who thwarted the James-Younger gangs’ attempt to rob the First National Bank back in 1876. The cashier’s name was Joseph Lee Heywood, and for his bravery, he was murdered by Frank James with a bullet to the head.

Frank James rode off into history with his brother Jesse and was never punished for his crimes. Heywood left behind a wife and two-year-old daughter.

But 137 years later, the people of Northfield have not forgotten the real hero of this outlaw tale. We shouldn’t forget who the real heroes are, either.

-- end of article.

Mark Lee Gardner is the author of "To Hell on a Fast Horse," about Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett. His latest book is "Shot All To Hell, Jesse James, The Northfield Raid and the Wild West’s Greatest Escape" (William Morrow, August 1, 2013). He has written a broad range of books and articles focusing on the American West. He has also written a number of interpretive guides for the National Park Service on subjects ranging from George Custer to Geronimo.

Mark is also an award-winning musician who specializes in historic American folk music. He lives with his family in Cascade, Colorado. For more information please visit:   www.songofthewest.com.

RANDOM SHOTS - Stallone & Damon Liberal Hypocrisy, and More!

THE FIRST SHOT! 

Sylvester Stallone thinks Bruce Willis is "Greedy" and "Lazy" 

Since everyone has a problem understanding steroid freak actor Sylvester Stallone these days even more than ever, he tweeted that "lazy" and "greedy" Bruce Willis is to be replaced by Harrison Ford in the next installment of the movie "The Expendables."

So why does Sylvester Stallone have so much animosity toward Bruce Willis? Who knows?

But Sylvester Stallone, who looks like he's had one plastic surgery yoo many and should really stay off the roids, happily announced that Bruce Willis had been "booted" from "The Expendables" new production  - calling Willis a "greedy, lazy jerk."

Stallone, who supposedly co-wrote both previous "Expendables" movies and is said to have actually directed the first, revealed that Harrison Ford would be joining the cast in place of Willis.

Stallone tweeted: “WILLIS OUT... HARRISON FORD IN !!!! GREAT NEWS !!!!! Been waiting years for this!!!!”

Not satisfied with simply showing Bruce Willis the door, the ultra-classless Sylvester Stallone added this parting Twitter shot: "GREEDY AND LAZY ...... A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE."

Bruce Willis had played Mr. Church, a CIA agent, in the first two incarnations of "The Expendables."

According to the report, a rep for Bruce Willis could not be immediately reached for comment this morning.

OK, so why do I care about such things enough to put it here on my blog?

Well, while I have never met either actor, from everything that friends have told me about Bruce Willis - he's anything but greedy and lazy. In fact, I'm told by friends that he is very hard working and giving.

What am I talking about?

Ever since the Persian Gulf War, Bruce Willis has selflessly given his time and money in an ongoing effort to support American troops all over the world.

Yes, he gives a lot to our troops here and overseas. He is always attending functions, and volunteering with the USO - even to the extent of taking his band "The Accelerators" on a USO tour to the Middle East and Europe to entertain our troops.

Can anyone say the same for Sylvester Stallone? No, I don't believe they can.

In fact, after 9/11, when asked to visit our troops in Europe and the Middle East - it's said that he flatly refused because it was "too dangerous" and was "afraid of terrorists."

Even ultra-liberal Congressman/Actor Al Franken tells the story about how Sylvester Stallone was too afraid to go to Iraq. Yes, Rambo told Al Franken that he wouldn't go on a USO tour simply because he's afraid.

For Stallone, his make-believe character in The Expendables must be great fantasy for him.

You see, in The Expendables which Stallone wrote, his character is Barney Ross aka "The Schizo," who is supposedly the leader of the team. Ross was supposedly trained in hand-to-hand and has extensive special weapons training.

Of course, in reality, it sounds like Stallone would wet himself out of fear if he had to go to the Middle East - nevertheless shake a few hands of our troops really doing what Stallone only wishes he had the cajones to do.

Maybe that's the reason he dodged the draft and didn't go to Vietnam? Who knows? Could be that he was simply too scared.

But wait, his not supporting our troops is only part of it!

Like other Hollywood liberals Sylvester Stallone was against the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn’t vote for Bush and was in fact very anti-Bush.

Stallone has also praised the use of anabolic steroid use. And yes, has in fact admitted to being a steroid user.

Besides those things, how about his hypocrisy when it comes to guns.

He has acted in some of the most violent movies ever made. So why is it OK to make movies with exaggerated graphic scenes of gun violence and carnage?

Crickets!

And how about his coming out against the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and gun rights here in the US?

These are some of his anti-gun quotes:

"Look at what's happening in America's inner-cities. If our hopeless legal system continues going the same liberal direction, there will be anarchy before long. We need one person in an influential position to stand up and tell the truth about gun control lobbies, the death penalty and that our criminal justice system basically stinks."

"until America, [goes] door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have... It really is pathetic... We're livin' in the Dark Ages over there."

"I know we use guns in films," but insisted the time has come "to be a little more accountable and realize that this is an escalating problem that’s eventually going to lead to, I think, urban warfare."

"It [2nd Amendment] has to be stopped, and someone really has to go on the line, a certain dauntless political figure, and say, ‘It’s ending, it’s over, all bets are off. It’s not 200 years ago, we don’t need this anymore, and the rest of the world doesn’t have it. Why should we?"

So how can someone that has made millions of dollars in films that glorify gun violence and killing in movies such as FIST, First Blood, Rambo and its sequels, Cobra, Judge Dredd, the Expendables, be so hypocritical on the issue of the Second Amendment and gun ownership rights?

How can someone like him, who so clearly supports door-to-door gun confiscations and another Assualt Weapons Ban, can actually own guns himself and have a permit to carry a concealed firearm? 

Yes, he has a CCW permit in a county where it is nearly impossible to get one. 

Stallone's CCW application is public record. And yes, it states that Sheriff Leroy D. Baca of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has in fact issued him a permit to carry a concealed firearm.

Of course, Sylvester Stallone isn't the only hypocrite in Hollywood!

SECOND SHOT!

Matt Damon's a Hypocrite

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said so!

Governor Bush blasted actor Matt Damon on social media for the Hollywood A-lister’s decision to send his own children to a private school after publicly campaigning about the importance of public education.

Here is what Florida’s 43rd governor tweeted:

"Matt Damon Refuses to Enroll Kids in Los Angeles Public Schools. Choice ok for Damon, why not everyone else?"
In an interview with the The Guardian, the ultra-liberal actor Damon acknowledged that he was sending his own three daughters and stepdaughter to a Private School in the Los Angeles area rather than the local Public Schools.

His reasoning sounded a lot like bullshit!

"Sending our kids in my family to private school was a big, big, big deal. And it was a giant family discussion. But it was a circular conversation, really, because ultimately we don't have a choice," Damon told the publication.

"I mean, I pay for a private education and I'm trying to get the one that most matches the public education that I had, but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system. It's unfair."

That's right, he really said that he was paying for a private school that will do the same job as a liberal public school - then he went on to say that liberal public schools don't exist!

What has he been smoking? Really? In California?

Public Schools in California are Liberal Indoctrination Camps!

If he's sincere, than just how stupid can the boy from Boston be if he thinks he has to send his kids to a Private School to get them a good liberal education?

The 42-year-old Damon can be seen on YouTube extolling the virtues of his public education at a 2011 Save Our Schools rally.

"From the time I was in kindergarten ... all the way through my high school graduation, I attended public schools. And I would not trade that education, that experience, for anything. I had incredible teachers," he said to scripted cheers.

Sure, so much so that he's sending his kids to private schools where there are less drugs and higher tests scores.

But than again, what does anyone expect from Hollywood Leftist who never seem to practice what they preach.

THIRD SHOT!

Approximately 80 percent of NYC high school grads can’t read at 9th grade levels


While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has tried to built a legacy for himself by addressing nonsense such as large sodas, salt and loud ear buds, New York City schools are going to hell in a handbasket!
CBS New York has a report out that Bloomberg might want to spare a few minutes to focus on:

Almost 80 percent of all New York City high school graduates who want to enroll in the City University’s community college system must first relearn basic reading, writing and math.

All told, approximately 11,000 would-be students are required to take remedial courses each year.

While nearly 80 percent of students who graduate from New York Public Schools can’t read and are as dumb as a bag of sand, they can go about having all the unprotected sex they want without fretting over the natural consequences.

You see, priorities being where they are, the Bloomberg administration used 40 individual "school-based health centers" to hand out nearly 13,000 free doses of Plan B — which is also known as "the morning-after pill" — on city students during the 2011-12 school year.

So yes, they might be stupid and horny - and their mayor only cares about their promiscuity.

LAST SHOT!

Just Move! 

Story by Tom Correa

RANDOM SHOTS - Liberal Self-Defense Class, Speaking American, and More!

THE FIRST SHOT!
Liberal Self-Defense Class

That's right! Run away!

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have both said that Americans "are obligated to run away if threatened."

In fact, Holder went so far as to say that Americans have the "historical obligation to flee from their homes if they felt threatened."

The Liberal Self-Defense Class Motto: Do Not Stand And Fight, Flee Like The Nation of Cowards We Want You To Be!

Yes, it's just one more reason to hate liberals!

SECOND SHOT!

Arizona College Student Slandered, Suspended, and Chastised for Wanting to Speak English


In April of this year, Terri Bennett, asked that all classroom discussion be spoken in English.

That was a huge mistake, simply because of the can of worms she was opened.

You see, Ms Bennett attended Pima Community College in Arizona. She was there attending the nursing program there, but the classroom discussions seemed to be more in Spanish than in English.

This was making it difficult for her to learn, since she does not speak Spanish. Her request prompted some really horrible remarks from - believe it or not - her teachers and college administrators.

First, the nursing program director David Kutzler called her a "bigot." He even went so far as to call the student a "bitch."

Classy guy, huh? And yes, he is an "educator".

After that, Kutzler proclaimed that Ms Bennett was discriminating against Mexican American students by wanting to speak English.

Yes, to the mind of a liberal jerkweed - wanting to speak English in an American school is a "hate crime."

Of course, the unfair treatment of Ms. Bennett, age 50, who was just trying to improve her life and was simply wanting learn in the language of this country, is systemic of the way liberals approach teaching these days.

What took place after Kutzler's gay rant is criminal!

Ms Bennett was then suspended from the school and her reputation slandered publicly. And to make matters worse, she was told that she could not return to that school until she received counseling.

Yes, all because she didn't speak Spanish and wanted to speak English!

Yes, it's true!

Ms Bennett was reprimanded and  suspended from school, told she had poor communication skills, and was told she could not return to Pima Community College until she received counseling.

Imagine this happening to you? Imagine the insanity? And all because she didn’t know how to speak a foreign language (Spanish) and wanted to speak English so she could understand the class work.

Thankfully, Ms Bennett has now obtained legal representation and is suing the school for breach of contract, harassment, retaliation, discrimination and violating the Arizona constitution.

For me, I hope she gets a billion dollars in a settlement from the racists running that school! I wish schools like that would be forced to close its doors. And as for those teachers and administrators who obviously don't recognize that we Americans speak English as a primary language should find themselves unemployed.

The Arizona Constitution recognizes English as the state’s official language and no discrimination or penalties are allowed for doing so. Section Three of that statute reads:

"A person shall not be discriminated against or penalized in any way because the person uses or attempts to use English in public or private communication."

The language in the Arizona State Constitution is very plain and straight forward. It's even easy enough for an "educator" to understand.

The school is criminal in a willful and direct violation of the state constitution, as well as Ms Bennett’s civil rights.

If Pima Community College wanted to be a Spanish only school, than they should have become one and not disguise themselves as serving the whole community.

They cannot discriminate against a citizen of the United States and get away with it.

Ms Bennett's legal advisers are John Munger, who is a lawyer who unsuccessfully ran for governor, and Phil Kent who is an Atlanta-based activist against illegal immigration.

To add insult to injury, the school says they did nothing wrong.

In fact, supposedly, the teachers and administrators only found out about "the problem" when they saw it on TV.

The school has an enrollment of 30,000 students on several different campuses and a Spanish enrollment of about 38%.

Their most famous student is Jared Loughner, who shot Gabrielle Gifford and several others.

So besides racists and "political correctness" followers, they fail to teach the difference between right and wrong as well.

THIRD SHOT!

Seattle officials call for ban on "potentially offensive" language


Let's see. First it was simply eliminating the word you find "politically incorrect" by calling it the "N-word".

Instead of saying the word "Nigger," people were told that that word was too offensive to use - unless of course you're black, than its fine to use it all you want.

Then it became "politically correct" to simply remove any reference to such a word if it is used by a white person even if it means removing one of America's greatest authors from school libraries.

It's true, Mark Twain was removed, has been banned, from many school libraries because the 19th century author used the 19th century colloquialism "nigger" in his stories.

Of course, there are rappers today who use the word "nigger" all the time in their lyrics but they are not banned from  the same schools who would ban Mark Twain.

Now, government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

But what if the brown bag folks are talking about is simply a brown bag? Even famed Sigmund Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and there's nothing else to it.

Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.

Seattle, however, isn't the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.

The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city’s Department of Education avoids references to words like “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke “unpleasant emotions” among the students.

Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.

Officials said such exclusions are normal procedure, insisting it’s not censorship.

"This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction," a Department of Education spokeswoman told the newspaper last year.

This is all really sad. The only thing this shows is that taxpayers need to fire a bunch of these idiots who obviously have nothing better to do on the taxpayer's dime than to play with words and read into them things that are not there.

Yes, they need to get a life and a job somewhere where they have no dealing with the public of policy making.

LAST SHOT!
The Media Lies!

This is a picture of Adolf Hitler feeding a couple of baby deer by hand, in the mid-1930's.

With a controlled media, Hitler's propaganda machine could make him look like the benevolent leader.

Yes, making the leader or political party look good - espically if that media outlet favors him or her or it - is nothing new.

Has it happened again? Ask yourself if it has?

The IRS persecution of Obama political opponents, the EPA handing over private information over to environmental extremists, the NSA scandal, the DOJ Fast & Furious gun running scandal, other government agencies like the GEO and IRS spending millions of taxpayer dollars on extravagant trips and conferences, all out of control, the president has an "enemies list" and wants to use drones on Americans, he refuses to label terrorism what it is "Islamic Terrorism", he encourages spying on each other, what do you really think?

Are these "made up" scandals, what he is calling "phony scandals"?

Scandal after scandal and the White House propaganda machine working with the liberal controlled media is making Obama look like the something he's not - all while, like in the case of Hitler, he is not what we are being led to believe.



Story by Tom Correa